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even king, should the queen choose to give him a crown of his own!—and his lowborn brats will sit upon the throne after him! How will supporting that further our cause?”
    Lord Bartok closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his highborn nose and breathed deeply in an effort to keep from slapping his son again. “Atticus,” he said slowly, “do you remember what I said to Aurelia when she proposed that I make another marriage for her?”
    â€œYou said that she was used goods and probably barren in the bargain,” snickered Atticus.
    â€œYes,” agreed Lord Bartok. “But I also said that in the whole of the realm there was no noble family as great as ours and that unless we were marrying royalty , we were marrying beneath ourselves.”
    He looked at his son expectantly. Atticus’s gaze had just begun to drift back to the wine jug when he realized what his father was saying.
    â€œYou mean to steal the queen away from the cripple, don’t you?” he blurted, sitting bolt upright in his chair. “You mean to … wait, do you mean to marry her to me ?”
    Lord Bartok chuckled softly. “No, Atticus, if need be, I mean to marry her to me ,” he said. “I’d sooner rule through Aurelia’s bastard than have to contend with a royal wife who may wish to have a say in the running of the kingdom, but I intend to keep my options open. That is why, while I continue to push the nobility to rise against the cripple, you are going to liberate the queen from his clutches. After you have done so, you will deliver her to my country estate, there to reside as my honoured guest until we determine if Aurelia has succeeded or failed in the task she has been set.”
    â€œAnd if she has succeeded?” asked Atticus, who’d resumed slouching.
    â€œAfter the cripple’s army has been annihilated, I will command the most powerful fighting force in the realm in addition to possessing the dead king’s sister and his so-called son,” replied Lord Bartok. “When I present these facts to my fellow noblemen, I am confident they’ll agree that my grandson should be anointed king, I should be declared his Regent and the dethroned queen should remain my honoured guest until the end of her days.”
    â€œAnd if Aurelia has failed?”
    Lord Bartok shrugged. “I will marry the queen to whom the great lords and I have already declared our support. In doing so, I will become prince consort—but only until such time as I am able to demonstrate to my new bride that it is in her best interests to give me a crown of my own, that I might be called king.”
    â€œYou’re old enough to be the queen’s grandfather,” said Atticus with the slightest of sneers. “What will you do if she does not care to marry you?”
    Lord Bartok tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of this possibility. “She will be made to speak her vows—at knifepoint, if necessary. She will then be held down and bedded before witnesses that she may never claim that we are not truly man and wife.”
    Appearing mollified by the knowledge that if he couldn’t have the bitch whose horse had dented his head that at least he’d have the comfort of knowing his father had ravished her, Atticus said, “So, my men and I are to follow the royal carriage when it sets out upon the morrow, then?”
    â€œNo,” said Lord Bartok with a chuckle. “The cripple thinks he can outsmart me, but he is an arrogant, lowborn fool. To be sure, I will send men to follow the carriage— but only so that his spies do not suspect that I know it’s nothing but a ruse.”
    â€œA ruse?” said Atticus in bewilderment.
    â€œI have it on excellent authority that instead of setting out by carriage tomorrow, late this night the cripple will board a ship bound for northern waters,” said Lord Bartok. “Though I have not been able to